Story Time
by ToastOnTheSidePlease
Summary: An over-enthusiastic Anne thinks she has just the thing to help Polly get to sleep, but things don't go as she plans. (Takes place right after "Contagi-Anne)


Another story idea sprang to mind, already and just wouldn't leave my head until I wrote it. So, hope you all enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own Amphibia, nor do I own any of the other properties referenced below.

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After watching her adoptive family have a false-alarm "death" from what they all thought was a case of red-leg, getting the Plantars down from the mountain-top mineral pond back to Wartwood turned out to be incredibly easy to manage by comparison. Once Anne had returned everyone to the farm intact, she immediately resumed her self-appointed role as caretaker. First, she whipped up a fresh soup for dinner, only this time with Hop-Pop closely watching over her shoulder to make sure she didn't accidentally put in any cleaning mushrooms. It was frankly a little awkward, but also completely understandable given the events of the day. Once everyone ate, Anne changed out Hop-Pop's sticky sweat-covered blankets, stuffed Sprig's swollen tongue back into his mouth one final time, and sent them both off to bed. That left just one more ill amphibian for her to take care of.

"Polly?" Anne called as she searched around the first floor. "Polly? Where are you?"

"Over here...wherever that is." Came a tired squeak of a reply.

"Okay, c'mere." Anne followed it towards the living room while carrying a bucket of fresh water. "I've got your-_NOPE_!"

Polly's puffy eyes were still swollen tightly shut, so the little thing had no idea that she was actually blindly crawling up into the garbage pail once again. Anne sent water spilling as she went into a lunge. The desperate dive was anything but graceful, but she managed to nab the sick tadpole just in time.

"Hey! I'm tryin' to go to bed here!" Polly protested. "What gives?"

"I'm saving you from a bath, that's what gives." Anne tucked her under one arm, picked up the spilled bucket and headed to the kitchen. "Oh man, you still can't see at all?"

"Doesn't look like it." she muttered.

"Well, at least you stopped sneezing, so that's something. Maybe some more eye drops will help-HEY! Polly how much have you have been rubbing your eyes like that?"

Caught dead in the act, Polly froze up before answering lamely, "... Just this once."

"Uh-huh. Right." The very skeptical Anne sounded an annoyed parent. "And you're sure you haven't been doing it since we got back?"

"...Noooo." This lie was even less convincing than the first one.

"And I bet you were doing it all the way home too." Anne confidently guessed. "No wonder they haven't gotten any better. You've just been irritating them more and more this whole time."

"They're itchy! What do you expect me to do?" Polly whined.

"I expect you to stop it so you can finally get better." Said the teen. "I'm making it official - no more from now on. Got it?"

Despite her declaration, she had to gently but firmly bat Polly's stubby little arms from her face no less than three times in succession as she refilled the tadpole's bucket in the kitchen.

"Polllllyyyy," Anne groaned as she put a stop to it yet again. "You're just making it worse."

"Who are you, the eye-police?" The little amphibian snapped. "I'll rub 'em as much as I want!"

"Hey, easy! Easy! I'm only trying to help."

"How about we make _your_ eyes feel like they're on fire, and then we'll see how easy it is for you to stop it!" Polly grumbled.

It was then that Anne knew then and there she couldn't possibly leave her alone for the night. After she made her executive decision she placed Polly in her freshened bucket and carried her into the cellar.

"Where are we taking me?" Polly could sense that she wasn't in her usual bedtime spot.

"Downstairs. You're bunking with me tonight." Anne quickly changed into her nightclothes, placed Polly's bucket by her bedside and took a seat at the edge of her mattress where she had to reprimand her charge yet again. "Hey, I see that! Stoppit, that's not gonna make it any better. C'mon, knock it off….mmmpphh….I said stop it...jeez, how are you so strong?"

It took a little bit more effort this time, but she managed to pull the tadpole's arms away from her face. Polly let out a frustrated grunt and started sulking up a storm. Anne sighed while she reached for the applicator. This was a pretty pitiful sight. As she gently applied a generous dose of eye drops she started to brainstorm for anything else she could do to make things a little more bearable for the suffering tadpole. Otherwise, they were both in for a long night.

A lightbulb suddenly went off in her head. Yes, it felt like just the thing they needed here. An enormous toothy smile of excitement swept across the teen's face from ear to ear, which Polly luckily wasn't able to see because otherwise it definitely would have creeped the tadpole out. Anne giggle-snorted as she leaned in close.

"Hey Polly?"

"Yeah?"

"If you stop rubbing your eyes, I'll tell you a storrrr-yyyy." Anne said in a singsong tone.

"Bedtime stories are for babies." Polly snapped for nothing more than grumpy defiance's sake.

"Well, since you are a baby, that actually works out pretty well for us!" Anne playfully shot back. At least, she was mostly sure that Polly was technically a baby. Honestly, she still didn't quite understand how that all really worked out in this world. After making a mental note to ask Sprig again about it tomorrow, she lay down on her side and made herself comfortable.

"This is happening no matter what, isn't it?" Her audience asked resignedly.

"It'll be fine. No, better than that, it'll be great! This has been one of my top favorite stories since I was a tadpo….little, I mean since I was little. Trust me, you're gonna love it." Anne boasted confidently.

"Can't wait for it to become my new favorite too." Polly radiated with sarcasm, but her storyteller was undeterred. Anne just knew that this was going to work. She cleared her throat and began.

"Once upon a time there was this prince. He was one of the most handsome guys in the whole land, but he was also one of the most selfish and meanest guys too. He was so awful that one day, this poor little old lady stopped by and asked if she could take shelter in his big gorgeous castle. And although he could have done it no problem, instead he was all, 'Um, you? Hanging around in my place? I don't think so.' But it turns out, the little old lady was actually an evil enchantress in disguise, and because this guy was the worst, she put him and everyone else in the castle under a dark curse-"

"A curse?" Polly yawned. She was unimpressed so far. "Big deal. Frogs put curses on each other all the time here."

"Yeah, but the curse that she put him under was a special curse. It turned the handsome prince into this big, hairy beast. He was tall, and had sharp teeth, huge claws, big hunky muscles, and thick fur all over his body. He looked like a cross between a bear, a buffalo, and a lion, all at once." She then to translate it to Amphibia's native fauna so Polly could have better context. "I mean, he looked like a cross between a double-bear, a bee-alo, and a sand-liger."

For a moment the tadpole was intrigued. "So was everyone else turned into beasts too? Was the whole castle full of them?"

"Uh….well, no, just the one guy."

"But I thought everyone got cursed."

"They did, but everyone else was turned into household items. Y'know, like candles, clocks, teapots. Regular things like that, but with like, faces and who could talk." Anne awkwardly explained. "More on that later."

"Oh. So it's a lame curse." Polly sighed and went right back to being disinterested.

"Anyway, so the enchantress told him that unless he fell in love with someone and then earned their love before all the petals fell off a magic rose before he turned 21, then he'd remain that way….." The teen paused for a dramatic effect. "Forever!"

"Seems kinda random if you ask me."

The constant interjections weren't slowing down Anne one bit. If anything, she was only getting more and more enthusiastic as she relived one of her favorite movies.

"So ten years passed after the awful curse. And in the village not too far from the castle was this bookish but beautiful young woman named Belle. And she'd often go into town, where she'd run errands, get even more books, and generally just do her own thing. And what made her awesome was that she never, ever cared what anyone else thought about her, which was way she wouldn't think twice about breaking into song whenever she felt like it."

She just couldn't help herself. And when Polly heard her pause to take a deep breath, the tadpole immediately knew what was about to come next. Her little heart sank with dismay.

"Oh no…..you're not-"

"Little toooowwwwwn….." The teen looked off dreamily into space as she began to warble. "It's a quiet villaaaagggee…..every daaaaaaay like the one beforrrree…."

"Oh, _NO_! No, no, no, nononononono! No! No!" Unfortunately for the desperate little amphibian, Anne couldn't hear her above her own singing.

"...There goes the baker with his tray like alwaaayyyys…."

And so it went on like this. As she passionately told her tale, Anne would wildly gesture, do impressions, and even move up and around. Polly continued to add her own commentary for a little while. However, it wasn't long until she felt like she had to just focus on getting through this whole ordeal with her mind and spirit intact. Unfortunately even she had her limits, and soon she found herself at the end of her endurance.

"...There she was, down in the snow and surrounded!" Anne narrated from where she lay on the floor, then leaped back to her feet. "And right as one of the snarling wolves pounced, BAM! The beast came from nowhere and grabbed him right from out of the air! And then the whole pack attacked him all at once, but he sent them all flying with a thunderous roar that-"

Polly couldn't take it any longer. Suddenly she exploded with a despairing yell as she finally reached her breaking point.

"...Kinda like that, actually." Anne hurriedly sat back on the edge of her bed. "You okay? What's wrong?"

"What's wrong? What's wrong?!" Polly snapped. "I'll tell you what's wrong! Your story is torture!"

"What?" Anne's jaw dropped in shock. "Polly, how can you say that?"

"Easy! Listening to it is torture, so that's what I'm gonna call it! Torture! TOR-TURE!"

"But this is a classic that's got everything! A brooding troubled guy who just needs someone to show him the right path, a smart heroine who's not afraid to do whatever it takes for those she cares about, fantastic song and dance numbers-"

Are you kidding me?! It's AWFUL! You can try and paint it however you want, but it's nothing more than just a stupid love story!" Polly ranted. "The monster guy and Belle are obviously gonna fall in love with each other by the end and break his lame curse! And so we have to wait through a bunch of dumb, DUMB songs until we get to a mushy ending that anyone can see coming from a million miles away!"

"Okay, so maybe that's what happens, but it'll be worth it!" Anne said defensively. "I promise!"

"Oh really? It'll be worth it to wait for the part where you talk about how Belle and Prince Furball finally kiss?" Polly retched as she pictured a cliche-packed schmaltzy ended filled with cutesy smooches. "I think I'll just barf now and save myself the time."

"Polly, I'm only trying to help! Hey, cut that out it!" She stopped Polly from rubbing her irritated eyes yet again, but the little one had clearly had it with all of her good intentions. Not only was the tadpole tired, cranky and uncomfortable, but now she had been bored out of her mind, turning her into a hot mess.

"Well, it's not working! I'd rather have actual red-leg than listen to this! I'd….I'd rather listen to Hop-Pop's poetry than this!" She announced dramatically.

Anne gasped. "No!"

"Yes!"

"You don't really mean that!"

"I _do_ mean it! This story is the worst! There's barely any action, and I bet after this thing in the woods it's just gonna be more gross romance from here on out. There's nothing for me here! Nothing!"

It was painfully clear to Anne at this point that this had backfired quite royally on her. Her mind raced.

"Hold on, there's stuff for you like here!" The flustered teen sputtered. "Uh ….there's…..okay, there's a big battle at the castle, and….okay, so that doesn't happen until the very end, but….but that's something you'd be into….right?"

Polly went quiet. She turned her sightless gaze towards the teen, and then after some thought, she decided to grant one final grant the storyteller one final chance before curiously asking, "...What kind of a big battle are we talking about?"

"Okay, so a bunch of people from the town go and storm the castle. Remember Gaston? Vain and superficial guy who liked to hunt? He leads them to try and kill the beast."

Polly groaned in disappointment. "How can that be any kind of battle at all? It sounds like it's just gonna be a big stupid nothing with the beast running around his stupid castle being all, "Oohh no, you guys are gonna get me, rawwrr,' while everyone chases after him. There's nobody else but him to go up against the townspeople. I mean, there's all his weird cursed talking things, but it's not like they can do anything."

Anne saw her chance. "Actually…..the fight is between them and the mob from town."

This actually grabbed Polly's attention. She perked up. "Huh? Wait...so...the furniture and the silverware and stuff defend the castle?"

"Uh-huh don't just defend the castle. They catch the guys in an ambush when they break inside." The girl said matter of factly. The mental image that Polly put together wasn't like anything that she pictured to her before in her entire life.

"Seriously?"

"Oh yeah." Anne grinned craftily. "But, if you're not feeling the story, then I guess we can just turn in for-"

Polly blindly clambered out of her bucker, up the mattress and into Anne's lap. "_Tell me everything about the furniture-battle_."

Anne honestly couldn't believe that she had tried to go about this whole bedtime story thing this so utterly wrong beforehand. At least she now finally had the tadpole's attention for the very first time, and she definitely wasn't going to lose it.

"Aw yeah, let's do this! So, big fast forward. Yeah, Belle and the Beast start to fall for each other and they hang around at the castle for a while, but then she goes home because she thinks her dad's in trouble, blah blah blah, she gets tricked and trapped at home, nothing special, just all the stuff that you'd expect." She skimmed hurriedly as she placed Polly back into her bucket. "But THEN Gaston went got the entire town jazzed up about taking down the beast, once and for all. So they armed themselves with axes, pitchforks, basically anything sharp and pointy that they could get their hands on, plus lots and lots of torches. Like, all the toches. And they marched to the castle, all of them screaming the whole way there, 'Kill the beast! Kill the beast!' And they cut down a tree to make a mondo battering ram for…."

Anne's audience of one proceeded to intently hang on to her every word from there. And when she got to the part where the story's villain fell from the highest point of the castle to a messy demise, Polly responded with such a loud cheer that it was a miracle she didn't wake up her brother or grand-frog. Although the little polliwog wasn't being lulled off to sleep, at least she was distracted. Even more importantly, she was happy, and Anne was going to do whatever it took to keep it that way.

What followed were several more stories, each one creatively edited down to the violent and dark bits. The collection of tales included _The Cool Octopus-Witch Who Was Eventually Speared By an Entire Ship_, _The Lions Who Backstab and Fight Each Other_, _The Evil Step-Mother Who Turned Herself Into a Witch and then Poisoned People Before She Fell off a Cliff_, and then _Mulan_ (that one actually didn't need a lot of trimming). Polly was absolutely spellbound with each one, and would only break her enthralled silence to let out a whoop when things got especially brutal, or to ask for another story when the last one ended. She even tolerated a few songs here and there when Anne simply couldn't resist the temptation.

Anne had no idea how late they stayed up. All she knew was that one moment she was getting into a specially tailored version of _Aladdin_, and suddenly she was waking up as morning sunlight streamed into the basement.

Almost immediately she rolled over and checked on her little patient. Polly gently bobbed up and down in her water, still sound asleep. To the teen's relief, it looked like the swelling had gone down a little. Even better was the fact that all the vibrant red had faded from her skin, allowing her to return to her natural magenta complexion. Satisfied, Anne shut the curtains and carefully tiptoed off upstairs where she found Hop-Pop and Sprig up and about. Their natural color had come back, save a couple of red splotches here and there that would probably vanish after a few more hours.

"Ooohh, you guys are looking waaaaay better! How are you feeling?"

"I'm doing amazing, thanks!" Spring cheerily replied, and performed a bouncy dance to show off his restored health. No sooner had he finished when his swollen tongue overflowed from his mouth and spilled onto the floor. But he just grinned and pointed proudly to it, "You thee that, Anne? It only wenth out three feeth that time!"

"Aw yeah, now that's what I'm talking about!" Anne gave him a celebratory high-five before fetching her rubber gloves.

"Thanks for all the help, Anne. You did a mighty fine job lookin' after us." Hop-Pop sat at the kitchen table where he scribbled onto some gnarly-looking fungi. "Oh, and just so you know, I'm labelin' all of our cleanin' mushrooms. Jus' so we don't have any more little mix-ups like we did yesterday."

"Hey, thanks! I appreciate it." Anne finished tying things into place with a fresh bandage. "Wait, so there are other mushrooms that you use around the house?"

"Uh-huh. These two here are for scrubbin' pots. And we got three in that cabinet for cleanin' different utensils. You definitely don't want to eatin' any of those by mistake."

"I guess sponges aren't that big a thing here." She mused. "So anyway, how about I make some of my famous fruity oatmeal for breakfast to help the Recovery-Express going?"

"Sounds good to me." Hop-Pop agreed.

"Recovery Express! Whoo-whoo!" Sprig enthusiastically tugged an imaginary train whistle.

"Awesome! You guys hang here, I'll go run out and grab some fresh fruit." Anne zipped back down into the cellar, where she changed both as quickly but also as quietly as she could. Just as she tied up the laces of her one shoe, she heard a soft splash.

"Polly?" She hustled over. "You up?"

Polly stretched, yawned, and to Anne's immense delight the polliwog was able to crack open her eyes partway.

"Awww, look at you! I mean, guess I should probably say 'look at me,' since you couldn't do at all yesterday, and….you know what, forget that, I'm taking a do-over." She gave her a one-armed hug. "Good morning!"

"Mornin', Anne." Polly replied with a sleepy smile. Then, as if her good night's sleep had been nothing more than a teensy interruption, she started to eagerly ask, "So, what happened next after they got to-"

She stopped when she noticed the small bag of copper pieces the teen held in her other hand. "You goin' somewhere already?"

"Yeah, just gonna run out and grab some breakfast stuff. I'll be back soon."

"Oh….okay." Polly wasn't awake enough to properly hide her disappointment. Anne frowned.

"Hey, you okay?" She felt her forehead for good measure.

"Yeah, I just thought that maybe…." She trailed off and muttered something under her breath. The normally super-assertive little amphibian was currently being anything but.

"Thought that what?"

"Thought that maybe we could…. when you get back….you think we could finish up that last story? The one with the thief, and the tiger-head-cave that eats people? " Polly chirped hopefully, and then immediately tried to cover for herself. "Normally I wouldn't ask for this kind of stuff, but….we started it, so we should probably see it through, right?"

A smile sprang to Anne's face. "Oh, we are _definitely_ seeing it through to the end. We'll finish it when breakfast is over. You remember where we were at before we crashed?"

"Yeah!" squeaked Polly. "The creepy hypnotizing guy-"

"Jafar."

"Yeah, whatshisname just got Aladdin to the murdering tiger-head cave!"

"Ooooohhh, nice! Okay, if you thought that things were already getting good, just wait, because it's gonna get totally a-_may_-zing." Anne automatically started to gush. "The genie's finally gonna show up, and-"

"What's a genie?"

"It's like a guy who's made out of pure magic, and he's totally off the wall in the best way possible. He grants wishes for almost anything you could want, he does voices, and….and you know what, no one is gonna get breakfast anytime I keep going like this. You'll hear about it later, okay?"

"Does the genie sing?" The polliwog couldn't help but pry, and Anne couldn't help but answer with another overload of enthusiasm.

"Does he sing? Does he sing? His songs are some of the best in the…." As something speedily occurred to the teenager, her smile transformed into a smirk. "Hey….since when do you care? I thought that you only let me do the songs because I like them."

Polly submerged down to eye level in her bucket, then sheepishly popped back up. "I like some of them….at least the ones that aren't the gross love songs."

"Believe me, there is nothing mushy going on when the genie takes the stage. Like I said, you'll see after I get back…" Anne took one look at the anticipation sparkling in Polly's eyes and changed her mind. Without a moment's hesitation she picked her up and headed upstairs. "Hop-Pop? Hey, Hop-Pop! Where do you keep the extra rope?"

Soon Anne was being quite the sight as she half-strolled, half-danced her way through Wartwood town center on her way to the store, singing with gusto while swinging an empty basket in her hands and bearing a bucket strapped to her back. She earned more than a couple of curious looks from the surrounding public, but she honestly couldn't care less. As long as she continued to hear Polly's laughter and feel her little passenger bounce up and down to the beat, then she was more than happy to carry on with her nostalgic tunes.

"...I'm in the mood so help me dude, you ain't never had a friend like me…."


End file.
